War of Wizards (20 page)

The girl reached the safety of Talon’s back and sat gasping for air and hanging onto Daria’s waist for several seconds. When she had regained her wits, she peered down at the ground with wide eyes.

Daria, turning to watch, studied the girl’s face. She’d been right. The girl was Sofiana, King Whelan’s daughter.

“Why were you alone?” Daria asked, worried. “What happened to Darik?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Sofiana said. “He stayed behind in Balsalom.”

“Thank the Mountain Brother. But why did he leave you?”

Sofiana said something, but the wind tore away her words, and Daria had to show her how to speak mouth-to-ear, like a griffin rider.

“I don’t need Darik,” the girl scoffed. “He would have forced me to stay in Balsalom, and anyway, I think the city is under attack by the wights, so it wouldn’t have been safe there.”

“It isn’t any safer on the road. Those ravagers almost had you.”

“You’re not going to start, too? You think because I’m a girl that I need to be coddled?”

“Because you’re a girl?” Daria said, laughing. “Look at me.”

“Well, then, because I’m not grown up yet. I can take care of myself.”

“How old are you?”

Sofiana thrust out her chin. The wind whipped the hair back from her face. “Thirteen. I know what you’re thinking, but let me tell you—”

“I’m not thinking anything of the kind,” Daria said.

“You’re not?”

“I made my first solo flight when I was six years old, fought my first battle when I was eleven. Became the flockheart at nineteen when my father died.”

Daria glanced back again to see Sofiana watching with wide eyes.

“Can I ask you a question?” the girl asked.

“Of course.”

“You’re not really in love with Darik, are you?” Sofiana sounded horrified by the thought.

Daria laughed again. “I am! The next time I see him, I’m going to marry him, even if it’s in the middle of a battle.”

Sofiana groaned. “Why would someone like you be interested in someone like him? You’re the queen of the griffin riders!”

Daria didn’t understand the question. Was it a choice? Why did she love her mother, why did she feel a surge of warmth and affection when she wrapped her arms around her griffin’s neck? Why did a griffin imprint itself upon its mate so fiercely that she would stand over her partner’s dead body to protect it? That kind of love was part instinct, part respect and tenderness of feeling, and finally, part a deep and aching need for intimacy and physical affection.

Of course, an undersize griffin couldn’t carry a too-large rider, and a griffin that was too powerful and headstrong could overpower a weak rider. So, too, it was important to find a compatible mate. But Daria certainly wasn’t looking for a
superior
mate, anymore than she was looking for someone she could dominate. Was Darik her equal? Was that the most important question?

In the end, she loved Darik because she loved him. And because he loved her in return.

#

It was at least twenty miles before they reached the western flanks of King Whelan’s army. Daria came in low over the Tothian Way to search for the king’s tent, but frightened archers drove her higher. She supposed that a large, dark shape at night would alarm men who were wary about dragons, but it was a disheartening welcome.

Even though it was now the middle of the night, the entire army seemed to be on the move. Men mounted their horses, while others marched east in formation. There must be a battle raging near the city that was drawing them, but all this movement would also leave Whelan’s army exposed to the rear, unless she could deliver a warning about the wights. But arrows chased her off every time she tried to find a place to land.

And so they continued east, looking for Whelan and Markal. Daria brought them over a hillock covered with tents and makeshift stables, and got her first glimpse of Veyre and the sea. The moon, stained red from the rising smoke, seemed to hover over the great city. An immense temple-like building sat at its middle, a ziggurat that was so vast and foreboding that she knew it must be the Dark Citadel itself. And inside, she realized with a shudder, the dark wizard himself must be directing his war.

Beyond the city, lay the sea. She’d never seen it before. It seemed a vast, featureless expanse, as black at night as dragon’s blood and as flat and endless as the southern deserts. Massive waves crashing into the seawall all along the coast hinted at the ocean’s power.

A tremendous battle was churning on the plain outside Veyre. Fire raged along the parapets of the city, and part of the wall had collapsed near the city gates. Massive siege engines hurled boulders at the walls, and other machines launched flaming bolts over them and into the city, while the Eriscobans and Balsalomians pressed toward the breach. Hundreds of desperate defenders seemed to be fighting a losing battle to keep the king’s army from flooding into the city.

A green light arced from the ground outside the city and lashed like an enormous whip along the city wall. Defenders fell screaming from the battlement, their clothing burning with green fire.

It was magic, and that meant Markal or Narud. If she could find the wizards, they’d be able to get a warning to Whelan about the advancing army of wights to their rear. But the people, the chaos, and the noise and fire all terrified her.

“Down there!” Sofiana cried in Daria’s ear. She pointed. “My father’s colors. That’s him.”

A group of horsemen waited in the wings outside the city, beyond arrow range. They numbered several hundred, gathered into three separate companies. Daria didn’t know if they were preparing to storm into the breach, or if they were a reserve to fight off enemy sallies, but they were separated from the main battle, and there was some sort of shed with a tunnel burrowing into the ground nearby. She could land on top of the shed and pass a message to the king without ever touching the ground.

Daria circled the battlefield above both the walls and the brawling armies. She put her horn to her lips and let out a long, clear blast. People lifted their heads. Men cheered in Whelan’s army, and soon a roaring shout rose from thousands of throats.

She veered back over the king and descended to land on the shed. Sofiana jumped off Talon’s back and stood on the shed waving her arms at a small clump of men who came riding toward them.

“Father!” The girl jumped down to the ground, still waving her arms.

Whelan rode tall in the saddle. He wore a helmet and a gleaming breastplate. His massive two-handed sword was sheathed over his shoulder. Daria couldn’t see the king’s expression, but she could see his anxious posture, almost feel his worry and longing for his daughter.

Daria gripped Talon’s reins in her hand. “Warn him,” she called after Sofiana. “Tell him about the wights. He has to protect his rear flank or it will be overrun.”

“I will! Stay safe!”

Daria didn’t wait for the men to arrive, but dug her heels into Talon’s haunches, and the griffin lifted with heavy, flapping wings. Daria glanced down as Whelan hoisted Sofiana into the saddle, where the two embraced. Daria allowed herself a smile at the warm moment amongst all the bloodshed.

She lifted the horn to her lips once more as she climbed above the battlefield. She meant to sound a final blast of encouragement before turning west to meet her mother and the rest of her people. A promise that she would return with the others to join the fight. But before Daria could blow it, another great cry roared through the armies.

They must have spotted her, she thought at first. But there was a different tenor to their cries—dismay and fear. Daria looked toward the city. And she spotted her enemy there, rising from the uppermost tower of the Dark Citadel.

It was the dragon. Its head was large enough to swallow a griffin and its rider whole, its thick tail powerful enough to smash a house with a single blow. Smoke rose from its nostrils, and the air shimmered with heat about its mouth. It was black and scaly, and so massive that she marveled how such a thing could get airborne.

The dragon turned toward Daria and let out a bellowing roar that rolled like thunder over the city, the walls, the plains, and the armies fighting below. Daria’s mount, a fierce golden griffin captured and tamed from the icy northern wilderness, shivered beneath her.

The dragon turned toward Daria and beat its mighty wings as it came to attack.

Chapter Eighteen

Kallia writhed on the flagstones. The pain was like fire in her belly, molten lead poured down her throat, and a glowing hot poker shoved up her nether regions. She screamed. Her bowels heaved and flowed, and she threw up.

A girl’s gentle hand touched her forehead with a damp cloth. “I am here, my queen.”

It was Rima, her servant girl. Kallia whimpered and leaned gratefully toward the damp cloth. Another attack rolled over her.

“Don’t touch her!” a hard voice said. Some dim part of her mind said it was Chantmer.

“But, my lord,” the girl said. “Please, I beg you.”

“Someone get this girl out of here,” Chantmer said. “We don’t need her or want her here.”

“For pity’s sake,” came another voice. This one was Darik’s. “What harm would it do?”

“We are not
trying
to ease her pain, you dolt. The more suffering, the better. It’s flowing out of her like a river, we only need to capture it. Roghan, ink the boy. Quickly, before the attack passes.”

A chanting voice, a tearing sensation at Kallia’s belly, like clawed fingers reaching into her belly and ripping at her guts to pull away her pain and use it for its own purposes. The thing growing within her had been motionless to that point, but now it flipped over and gave a hard kick, then thrashed about for several seconds, only residing when Kallia’s pain eased.

“Interesting,” Chantmer said. “And alarming, at the same time.”

The khalifa opened her eyes and saw through her streaming tears that the wizard was bent over her, his hand on her belly. It was after nightfall, and torches lit the courtyard, casting faces in flickering light and shadow. Distant war horns sounded. Word had come an hour earlier that the attack had begun, but Chantmer had declared himself not yet strong enough to fight. He’d already taken the strength of one of Kallia’s fits earlier that afternoon, and seemed reluctant to leave the palace until he had the second one as well.

She turned her head and saw Darik in a chair, one of the mages bending over his bare shoulders with needles and ink, fingers flying across the skin, tattooing a snaking design with green and red hues. The young man leaned back in his chair breathing heavily, moaning, but not with pain. It seemed to be pleasure. Other mages sat and submitted to tattoos from the conjurers and torturers of Balsalom.

A final shudder worked down Kallia’s body, and she was aware that she was lying in her own filth and vomit. She was humiliated and disgusted. Sharp knives still worked in her belly, hinting that the next wave of pain would arrive shortly.

“The Harvester take me,” Darik said, sitting up in his chair as the mage finished his work. The young man turned his gaze toward the khalifa with such a look of horror that she had to look away. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Has it always moved like that?” Chantmer said. He prodded at her belly. “It looked like it was trying to tear itself free.”

She pushed his hand away. “No, only rarely.”

“It must have felt me working.” His gaze sharpened. “Have you ever tried to kill it?”

“I don’t think it can be killed. I don’t think it is even alive.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is. Not yet. And when it comes, when it
does
live, it will be no easier to kill than the dark wizard himself. In a sense, it
is
the dark wizard. His final rebirth to keep him safe from the Harvester forever. I should be on hand when it comes. Perhaps I can—”

Kallia didn’t hear the rest of it. Her breath came more quickly. The pain was mounting again. Moments now, to the next wave of the attack.

“It’s . . . here,” she gasped.

A scream came out of her mouth. Dimly, she heard the wizards working again.

The pain this time was so intense that it pushed her to the edge of consciousness. She couldn’t bear it anymore, and lifted her head to dash it against the flagstones of the courtyard. Anything to end it. Someone caught her head. Other hands grabbed her, but they weren’t gentle, and she tried to tear free.

The attack seemed to go on and on with no end to it, wave after terrible wave. Each crest pushed her to the point of senselessness before withdrawing. Until finally, at long last, it ended. She lay shuddering and crying.

“Get back from her,” Darik said. “Move back, Chantmer, you’ve done enough. It’s over, can’t you see that? Rouhani, help me.”

“We have what we need,” Chantmer said. “Now our duty is on the city walls. Come, leave her.”

“Don’t touch me!” Darik snapped. “I’ll go when I’ve seen her to her rooms.”

The captain of the guard joined Darik in lifting Kallia. She let them carry her out of the courtyard and down the corridor.

“I’m so sorry,” Darik whispered. “Please forgive me, Kallia.”

She couldn’t speak, but squeezed his wrist where he had her around the waist to let him know she wasn’t angry with him. They left her in her room with Rima, who was already preparing the wash basin to clean her up, and rushed off without another word. If Kallia could have, she’d have thanked them, especially Darik. That look of ecstasy on his face when he’d been drawing her pain was unsettling, but more so was the look of horror as he recovered from it. She had suffered terribly, but her ordeal was over for now, while he was left with the knowledge that his pleasure had come from her suffering. What a burden for him to bear.

Kallia let Rima bathe her and rub her with scented oil. She dressed in clean-smelling underclothes and silk paijams and climbed into bed. She didn’t want to sleep, she wanted to put on clean robes and ride to the city walls to watch the battle and direct it so far as she was able. But she was too weak and exhausted. She took the girl’s hand as Rima pulled up the cotton sheet, and brought it to her lips.